1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to touch sensitive user interfaces, and more particularly to a method and system for accessing, and navigating paginated electronic information.
2. Description of the Related Art
The use of Electronic books (e-books) has been gaining increased popularity with the widespread availability of portable computing and handheld electronic display devices. An e-book is a digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book. Information in an e-book may be presented in a scrollable manner, where a user continuously scrolls to navigate through a document or book, or in a paginated manner as a traditional printed on paper book.
E-books provide many advantages over traditional printed books. E-book text may be searched automatically, and cross-referenced using hyperlinks. This makes e-books an excellent choice of format for works that benefit from search and cross-reference capabilities, such as dictionaries, reference works, and certain kinds of textbooks. The electronic nature of e-book text means less physical space is required to store e-books. Hundreds or even thousands of equivalent printed full text volumes may be carried together on one e-book device. For example, approximately 500 average e-books may be stored on one CD (equivalent to several shelves of print books). Because electronic information requires relatively little space, e-books may be offered indefinitely, with no ‘out of print’ date, allowing authors to continue to earn royalties indefinitely (copyright law permitting), and allowing readers to find older works. With Internet access, the ease and cost associated with distributing e-books is minimal. Readers may begin reading as soon as an e-book download is completed, without the need to visit a bookstore.
E-book readers, who have difficulty reading print books, benefit from the adjustment of text size and font face of the material presented to them. Text-to-speech software may be used to automatically convert e-books to audio books. In addition, some e-books devices allow reading in low light, or even total darkness, with a back-lit device. An e-book may be more comfortable for some to hold, because it does not need to be held open like a paperback. E-books may also be set down and read hands-free.